DR JAMES LAMB
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Michael's comment on my research proposal

26/12/2012

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Continuing with Michael's generous comments on the abstract and context within my research proposal, I've attached this edited pdf below.
research_proposal_-_michael_comments.pdf
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And here's a summary of Michael's key points, some of which echo the themes from his general advice for the preparation of my literature review:
  1. Define multimodality as soon as possible. Also be aware that multimodality and translisteracy should not be conflated (according to Michael’s supervisor at least). Multimodality is more a theory of trying to understand representation itself while transliteracy is the student's capacity for navigating these different narrative modes and tools.
  2. Decide whether I’m concerned with the theory of multimodality in itself, or whether I’m concerned of the use of multimedia in essays etc (as per McKenna). The theory focuses on mode, design, layout and the mechanisms for interpreting these, while media is about using alternative forms of narrative for instance through essays.
  3. Multimodality removes linearity in the sense that everything is presented simultaneously to a degree. This means that composition becomes more important than linear narrative. This means that students show literacy through composition design, which perhaps needs to be considered when assessing an artifact (my emphasis).
  4. I need to use consistent terminology in my research questions. For instance, ‘markers’ or ‘course designers’?
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A summary of Michael's valuable lit review tips

26/12/2012

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Following Michael's generous e-mail, I've summarised the key bits of advice he recommends with regard to my lit review:
  1. Consider defining multimodality
  2. Avoid conflating multimodality and transliteracy (or multimedia)
  3. Find an article that nails it for my research, and work backward and forward from there. The McKenna chapter for instance might be perfect.
  4. With the foundation article selected, visit Google Scholar and do the citation search for that article. It will take me to people who have cited that article and I can look for similar, relevant work.
  5. Look through the reference list on the foundation article and follow those up. 
  6. Do some straight up searching, although this might have mixed success depending on the search term I use. This might require a whole slew of searches. Multimedia and assessment might be the best search terms.
  7. Set up Google scholar alerts so that when new relevant material is published, I will hear about it.
  8. Be surgeon like in considering articles for inclusion. Unless it is directly relevant, ditch it. Don’t venture of task for a moment. It will waste the word count if nothing else.
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Michael replies...

26/12/2012

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When I e-mailed Michael just before Christmas I didn't expect an immediate response, and I certainly didn't anticipate that he would have gone into so much thought and detail. I'm going to post his full response below before working through the different items:
Hello there, James,

Great stuff on the research proposal. Enjoyed it and it is fun to see someone with such similar interests as mine. I am less on assessment but we share an equal fascination with unconventional modes of representation. 
  1. I am attaching your research proposal with some notes attached. Great stuff and most of my comments are minor. I might consider at some point defining multimodality (as championed by Kress) and transliteracy (more of the McKenna camp). Kress is at IoE and has this weird mythical following and my supervisor has strongly cautioned me to avoid conflating multimodality and transliteracy (or even multimedia). My notes explain on this a bit. I would go with whatever Sian says, though and I think she uses multimodality. 
  2. As for Literature Review (which I am doing now for the PhD so that is a nice coincidence), depending on the day I am quite systematic or quite serendipitous in my searching. Here are my tips as I see them. 
  3. I think the trick for me has always been to find that one article that absolutely nails it for your research and then work forward and backward from there. I think for you that McKenna chapter is fantastically apt as she makes the case that these hypertext essays (same thing as what we are talking about-multimedia) are advancements and assessable and all that. So, that chapter (perhaps much more than Kress) might represent the foundation for your research. 
  4. From there, I would go to Google Scholar, find that McKenna chapter (or anything similar she might have written) and then citation search that. This is quite easy on Google Scholar as they provide a link for every search result that says Cited by..... Click on that and you will see anyone that has cited this work for their research. Chances are the one that cited is awfully similar to it. See attached screenshot (and below)for that Cited by link. This is basically reverse citation engineering. 
  5. Go back to the McKenna chapter (or whatever you choose) and go through her references for background. This stuff is invaluable for your lit review as it is basically evidence of someone establishing the heavy hitters in this space for you. I am not condoning plagiarism or anything like that, but nor do I feel it necessary to reinvent the wheel. McKenna writes a lot about multimedia so her background research would be perfect for your lit review (along with some assessment mechanisms, which I think she writes about as well). 
  6. When you have exhausted these tasks, it is down to straight up searching, but this is problematic as not a single author has agreed on the terminology for "multimedia essay". So, you basically have to do a whole slew of searches (with quotation marks to establish the phrase and not the term) for a. "hypertext essay" assessment b. "multimedia essay" assessment c. "digital essay" assessment and on and on. I think to begin with your best bet is multimedia and assessment as search terms and work from there. 
  7. I think rather than type these again and again, set up Google Scholar Search Alerts as these will alert you when new articles are published that fit your criteria. Helpful. The Create Alert link can be found at the bottom of each search results page on Google Scholar. 
  8. More than anything with the dissertation I found was the tendency to write too much rather than not enough (the word limit is quite restrictive). So my advice is to be surgeon-like in reviewing these sources. If something doesn't relate to multimedia, literacy, or assessment, then dump it. Don't venture off task or focus for a moment (I got pinged for this). So this is also why I caution on using Kress and multimodality except for supporting accounts on why alternative forms of knowledge construction are so important. You could spend decades getting lost in that Kress maze. He is great for stressing that new modes of communication are important, but not necessarily practical uses for these new modes (or assessment mechanisms). He is really into socio-linguistics and social semiotics and that is a confusing realm. So use him, but mostly as supporting evidence on new modes of meaning making. Not as your analytical theory or framework or anything. Just my two cents. We can talk on the phone more about this if you want. 
  9. I am going to send you in a separate email some articles I use. Better yet, do you use Dropbox? If so, I have all my research in nice little folders and I would be happy for you to peruse them as you need to. Full articles, etc. No point in going through my pain. If you have a Dropbox account, let me know; otherwise I can just invite you. Really cool tool for sharing/collaborating. All my research is just sitting there for you to look through if you want. Here is the link but let me know what email address you want to use for Dropbox and we can share a bit easier. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8wmxnrt13b0x87c/Zsigqs-chR. 

Awesome stuff, James! So excited to see your topic and what you are pursuing. I won't lie to you, I wish I was working with Sian as well. She is a joy to learn from. 

So go ahead and review and get back to me with questions and we can discuss. Happy to help my man! Merry Christmas!
As ever, fantastic (and fantastically generous) stuff from Michael. To make best use of his tips I'm going to summarise them now in a separate post.
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Making contact with E-Learning tutors (draft)

26/12/2012

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It's too late in the evening to attempt any reading, so instead I'm going to spend a bit of time drafting an email that I'll send to members of the MSc in E-Learning course team to see whether they are appropriate and willing to participate in an interview.
Dear //////

Firstly, I hope this message finds you well and that had a pleasant and restful Christmas break.

I am contacting you in relation to my dissertation for the MSc in E-Learning: 'A constellation of image, text and sound: exploring multimodal assessment in the digital classroom'. The focus of my research will be upon the experience and attitude of online tutors towards multimodal assessment, focusing on tutors from the MSc in E-Learning. I have attached the abstract for my proposed research. I intend to consider three key questions:

-What rationale do tutors apply when choosing to make use of multimodal assessment?

-What are the implications in terms of interpreting the quality of a multimodal assignment? In particular, how are assessment criteria defined in order to judge the quality of a multimodal artifact?

-How does a shift towards multimodal assessment reframe the role and experience of the marker?


With the encouragement of Sian (my dissertation supervisor) I am contacting you to enquire whether you have experience of assessing assignments that present ideas across a range of modes (for instance video, web essays, Second Life builds) and if so, whether you would be willing to be interviewed for my research.

My intention is to conduct face-to-face interviews during February however I will be flexible on both counts to accommodate participants. Assuming you are prepared to consider taking part in an interview, I will of course provide you with more detail including a participant consent form. Should you require additional information at this stage however, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for taking time to consider my request and I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience.

Kind regards,
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Vectors journal

23/12/2012

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I've had a quick look at Vectors journal, linked from the image below. Vectors came up during conversation during my recent meeting with Sian where we talked about the audience for my dissertation. Although we agreed that it was better (in the first instance, at least) to 'write' with an internal audience in mind and not to aim for an online journal such as Vectors, with a view to my own mode of dissemination, I think the publication could be a useful sources of inspiration.
Picture
The introductory blurb on the website offers a nice description of the purpose of the journal and the approach it takes. I've highlighted below a line I particularly like, which offers a measured, sober description of how they favour a fusion between new and old media that extends ideas of traditional text scholarship, without proposing to replace text per se.
Utilizing a peer-reviewed format and under the guidance of an international board, Vectors features submissions and specially-commissioned works comprised of moving- and still-images; voice, music, and sound; computational and interactive structures; social software; and much more. Vectors doesn't seek to replace text; instead, we encourage a fusion of old and new media in order to foster ways of knowing and seeing that expand the rigid text-based paradigms of traditional scholarship. Simply put, we publish only works that need, for whatever reason, to exist in multimedia. In so doing, we aim to explore the immersive and experiential dimensions of emerging scholarly vernaculars across media platforms.
I'll come back to browse Vectors at a later stage and have thus left the according action within the things to do list in the side bar to the right.
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Possible observation contacts from Jen

22/12/2012

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Again, great (and speedy) support from the MSc course team, this time from Jen in response to my request for names of participants in her multimodal roundtable event:
yes, good idea. Here are the possibly relevant people who attended - hope it helps! I'd wait til January to approach them, though - everyone is probably feeling at capacity this week.

John Lee, ACE/Informatics
Sophia Lycouris, ECA
Kriss Ravetto, Film Studies
Ella Chmielewska, Arts Culture and Environment
Joachim Gentz, Literature, Languages and Cultures
Nick Higgins, Literature, Languages and Cultures

Offline now for a couple of weeks - have a great break when it comes!
Jen

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Possible observation contacts from Dai

22/12/2012

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True to her word, Sian quickly contacted Dai Hounsell on my behalf in order to identify whether there was anyone he could suggest that I might approach with regard to possible crit observation. Here's Sian's e-mail (including Dai's response):

I heard back from Dai re his 'crit' contacts - he said:

-------

My contacts were in ESALA (Archit & Landsc Achit) -- Sole and Fiona -- email addresses below. But another good contact would be Olwen Gorie who runs the Teaching Organisation:

[email protected]
[email protected]k
[email protected]

-------

I don't know these people myself, so it might be good if you contacted them saying Dai passed on the info, and see where you get to with this? Then if you have no joy we can follow up with other contacts early next year.

I hope you and the family have a fabulous 'first' christmas....

Sian



I'll draft my 'approach email' over Christmas and then send it at the very start of the new term. There doesn't seem much point in sending anything at this stage.
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Next meeting with Sian

22/12/2012

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This will take place at 1.30pm on Friday 1 February. I need to submit my draft lit review in advance of this in order for us to have something to talk about.
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Carey Jewitt

22/12/2012

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This e-mail from Sian, with a link to work by Carey Jewitt on multimodality:
Good to see you earlier - here's the link to Carey Jewitt's work:
http://www.lkl.ac.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=93
: )
Sian 
Sian described Carey Jewitt as being a key voice on multimodality and, having glanced at the linked information, she has written a great deal on the subject. Much to follow up, then.
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Registering for the dissertation

22/12/2012

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In the new year I need to formally register for the dissertation. Here's the e-mail from Jen outlining what I need to do: 
Thanks, James - I have the latter of the two proposals, and will file this. I'm copying Angie Hunter into this email, so that she knows that I have approved your registration for the dissertation, when the form arrives from Moodle. 

So, you can be enrolled - but let's leave it until the start of January so that you get the full year from then (though I note you're aiming for an August submission).

I'll add this to the 'things to do' list in the side bar.
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